Wednesday, November 2 2005 17:16 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: A sudden buying spree prompted mainly by short covering by foreign funds today (Nov 2, 2005) lifted the Sensex by a hefty 129 points to end at 8072.75.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which reported heavy net sales during October and domestic mutual funds were believed to have made across-the-board purchases after early profit booking by operators and retailers.

Bouncing from the early lows of 7891.23, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Benchmark 30-share Index (Sensex) flared up to the intra-day high of 8086.84 before ending the day at 8072.75 as against yesterday's (Nov 1, 2005) close of 7,944.10, a net gain of 128.65 points or 1.62 per cent.

Investors resorted to all-round buying in shares after it was observed that FIIs have been covering short positions in the Futures, brokers said.

FIIs had made withdrawals of Rs 3657 crore in Cash during October, besides trimming their long outstanding positions in futures in the same period.

Strong prospects of a robust growth of seven per cent in the economy for the current fiscal and firm trend in Asian markets bolstered the sentiment.

Heavyweights like Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Infosys Technologies, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), Bharti Tele-Venture, HDFC, Tata Steel, Larsen and Turbo (L&T), Satyam Computers, Grasim and Bajaj Auto recorded sharp gains on hectic buying support.

The market will remain closed tomorrow (Nov 3, 2005) and on November 4 on account of Bhaubeez and Ramzan-Id.

The broad-based BSE-100 Index shot up by another 57.90 points to 4249.00 from previous close of 4191.10.

The BSE-200 Index and the Dollex-200 were quoted sharply up at 1020.53 and 376.07 at close compared to previous close of 1007.59 and 371.88 respectively. The BSE-500 Index jumped by 37.89 points to 3265.17 from yesterday's close of 3227.28 and the Dollex-30 ended higher at 1466.96 from 1445.82.

The volume of business, however, was low at Rs 2154.05 crore. Suzlon Energy clocked the highest turnover of Rs 148.00 crore followed by SBI (Rs 140.18 crore), RIL (Rs 127.30 crore) Satyam Computer (Rs 120.95 crore) and Sesa Goa (Rs 102.30 crore).

RIL spurted by 11.00 to 777.10, Infosys Tech by 53.25 to 2588.65, Satyam Computers by 15.25 to 627.60, L&T by 94.55 to 1509.50, Bajaj Auto by 34.55 to 1754.80, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) by 15.70 to 1138.20, Dr Reddy's Lab by 23.55 to 846.55, Grasim by 53.30 to 1178.90, Hindalco by 3.60 to 120.70, ICICI Bank by 1.90 to 499.05, Reliance Energies Limited (REL) by 9.70 to 527.50, ITC by 3.45 to 125, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd by 17.60 to 1425.50, Wipro by 5.45 to 369.80, Tata Steel by 7.50 to 347.70, Tata Power by 12.15 to 412.20, Ranbaxy by 1.40 to 351.65, HLL by 2.25 to 164.80, Hero Honda by 8.35 to 714.40, HDFC by 32.70 to 1001.80, GACL by 3.25 to 73.10, Bharti Tele-Venture by 3.75 to 329.10 and ACC by 13.15 to 464.95.

However, SBI dropped by 7.65 to 830.55, HDFC Bank by 8.90 to 620.15, Tata Motors by 4.35 to 480.65, ONGC by 2.30 to 931.65, Maruti Udyog by 9.35 to 542.05 and Cipla by 2.65 to 359.40.